Future Companions
Future Companions
Future Companions helps older adults and their families understand how AI and robotic companions can extend independent, safe living at home.
Aging in place comes with loneliness and the loss of daily companionship, a shrinking supply of professional caregivers, the rising cost of assisted living and home care, and the simple need for someone—or something—to notice when things go wrong.
More presence and daily companionship between human visits.
Helpful support amid a shrinking professional caregiver supply.
Tools that may help extend safe living at home.
Check-ins and monitoring when something goes wrong.
Robotics and AI are starting to offer real, if early, answers. Not science fiction. Not a replacement for family or caregivers. But a growing set of tools for presence, check-ins, reminders, monitoring, and eventually physical support—used to fill the gaps between visits, not to replace the people who matter most.
Future Companions is a video series and blog documenting where this technology actually stands today, told through real examples, plain-language reporting, and firsthand field research—including a trip to two of China’s leading robotics trade shows and a visit to UBTECH’s Shenzhen headquarters in October 2026.
We publish new episodes and articles roughly every two weeks. This is also an open exploration of where real business opportunities exist at the intersection of aging and robotics—so if you’re working in this space, we’d like to hear from you.
Follow the reporting as the technology moves from promise to practice.
Explore the episodes